Digital is in fighting shape but will not be immune to challenges in 2009

Ludicrous levels of over-investment in a market without solid foundations prompted a catastrophic crash with widespread job losses in the sector.

This is not a snapshot of the current economic situation, but a flashback to the spring of 2000 when the online bubble burst and the dot.com world fell to its knees.

The digital market-place has made some serious strides since those dark days and if the UK economy recovers to such an extent that the online media world has done over the past nine years, then we should all remain highly confident that the economy in the UK can return to a model of progressive and sustainable growth.

With online ad revenue growth expected to reach 7-9% in 2009, online media consumption and e-commerce levels at an all time high and marketers increasingly turning to digital to deliver results, the online media industry looks well placed to establish itself even further up the marketing food chain over the next 18 months.
Read more »

The media market is entering a brave new world of real time auctions and inventory management

eBay is increasingly moving away from the traditional auction model towards more ‘buy it now’ sales. They now allow major retailers such as Argos and Littlewoods to list items at fixed prices.

The business had dramatic success since the emergence of dotcom largely because the auction model is much fairer for people with the price linked to supply and demand, not set at some arbitrary level by the seller. (more…)